In hiring weed czar, California seeks a technocrat — not a stoner
If there’s one nagging concern keeping you from applying to be the chief of the state’s new Bureau of Medical Marijuana Regulation, here’s some good news: There’s no pre-employment drug test.
But if passing that test would have been a problem, there’s some bad news: You might not have what it takes to be California’s first weed czar.
“We don’t want a stoner,” said Russ Heimerich, a spokesman for the Department of Consumer Affairs, which is doing the hiring.
While the weed czar doesn’t have to have a personal history with the product he or she will regulate, whoever gets the job is “going to have to know the industry or have to get to know the industry. What you need is to be able to manage, lead, and administer.”
In other words, California is looking for a diligent technocrat to regulate its recently passed medical marijuana laws, not Seth Rogen.
Angela Grasty weighs and packages medical marijuana at Harborside Health Center in Oakland on June 5, 2014. Photo: Tim Hussin
Perhaps that’s why insiders are calling the gig the “Chief BuMMR” (as in Bureau of Medical Marijuana Regulation).
Still, the Chief BuMMR would be a sweet gig for an ambitious public servant. The chosen candidate will get a rare chance in Sacramento — the opportunity to create a brand new wing of the bureaucracy. The weed czar will hire perhaps 40 to 50 people, whose salary would be paid for with the waves of new cannabis licensing fees created by California’s recently passed medical marijuana law.
But much of the job would be the drudgery of administering — say setting up IT systems for the bureau and crafting the minutiae of regulation policy.
The pay: Up to $128,808 a year.
“To a certain extent it will be the same as any other bureau,” Heimerich said. “It will really be a lot more routine that most people imagine. Except that you’re dealing with marijuana.”
In this May 2013 file photo, medical marijuana prescription vials are filled at a medical marijuana dispensary in Venice, Calif. Photo: Damian Dovarganes, Associated Press Photo: Damian Dovarganes.
Whoever lands the job will need to foster relationships throughout the marijuana world.
“You’re going to have be trusted at local level, trusted at the state level, trusted by law enforcement and be able to help connect 17 different agencies who want to talk to each other,” said Sean Donahoe, a top marijuana industry consultant who knows Sacramento and has worked on non-weed political campaigns in California. “You’re going to have to get along with the industry, with the growers, and get along with the Legislature.
“Oh, and you’re going to have to deal with the federal government,” which still considers the product to be regulated to be illegal, Donahoe said. “You’re going to have be a benevolent technocrat who can still sit cross-legged and kumbaya with multiple agencies.”
It could be stressful enough to give even buttoned-up bureaucrats an excuse to sample the product they’re regulating. (Aside from law enforcement officers, Caltrans workers who regularly who drive state vehicles and a few others, most state employees aren’t drug tested as a condition of employment. And once hired, they may only get asked to do so if they’ve misbehaved in some way.)
Another pressure: If Californians vote to legalize marijuana for adult recreational use in November 2016, when the issue will likely be on the ballot, the Chief BuMMR could be either out of a job — or in line for an even bigger one regulating medical and recreational herb.
“I don’t know who’d want this, but it will definitely be a rollercoaster of a ride,” Donahoe said.
Kari Uyemoto (left) and Brandy Stewart (right) at the Apothecarium, a medical marijuana dispensary to shop for medical marijuana in San Francisco on Oct. 1, 2015. Photo: Liz Hafalia, The Chronicle
Looking to other states that have recently legalized cannabis for adult rec use offers a mixed bag. Colorado’s weed czar — aka “Director of Marijuana Coordination” is Andrew Freedman, a Harvard Law grad who did a summer stint in the U.S. Department of Justice. That alone might freak out the Humboldt County pot farmers who have spent decades ducking the feds.
Oregon’s czar — the “director of marijuana programs for the Oregon Liquor Control Commission” — got canned in March, three months into the job when the state accused him of leaking internal policy documents with a representative for cannabis growers, then lying about it.
The best nugget of advice for California’s future Chief BuMMR comes from Mark Kleiman, a New York University public policy professor and prolific cannabis author whose Los Angeles firm advised Washington’s Liquor Control Board on establishing its weed legalization policies.
Kleiman didn’t like being called the “pot czar.” He preferred the term “Hemperor.”
But when CNN host Erin Burnett gigglingly asked whether he used cannabis, Kleiman demurred, saying there’s no good way for a drug policy analyst to answer the question. The job, he said, requires you to offer the best policy solutions regardless of how you feel about weed — meaning it’s “irrelevant” whether you spark up.
“You have two options. You can say, ‘Yes, I’m a lawbreaker, come arrest me’ or ‘you can say, ‘No, I don’t know anything about the stuff I’m talking about,’” Kleiman told Burnett. “And since neither of those things are a really advantageous thing to say, I just make it a policy to not respond.”
By Joe Garofoli
http://www.sfchronicle.com/business...-weed-czar-C-A-seeks-a-technocrat-6659353.php
If there’s one nagging concern keeping you from applying to be the chief of the state’s new Bureau of Medical Marijuana Regulation, here’s some good news: There’s no pre-employment drug test.
But if passing that test would have been a problem, there’s some bad news: You might not have what it takes to be California’s first weed czar.
“We don’t want a stoner,” said Russ Heimerich, a spokesman for the Department of Consumer Affairs, which is doing the hiring.
While the weed czar doesn’t have to have a personal history with the product he or she will regulate, whoever gets the job is “going to have to know the industry or have to get to know the industry. What you need is to be able to manage, lead, and administer.”
In other words, California is looking for a diligent technocrat to regulate its recently passed medical marijuana laws, not Seth Rogen.
Angela Grasty weighs and packages medical marijuana at Harborside Health Center in Oakland on June 5, 2014. Photo: Tim Hussin
Perhaps that’s why insiders are calling the gig the “Chief BuMMR” (as in Bureau of Medical Marijuana Regulation).
Still, the Chief BuMMR would be a sweet gig for an ambitious public servant. The chosen candidate will get a rare chance in Sacramento — the opportunity to create a brand new wing of the bureaucracy. The weed czar will hire perhaps 40 to 50 people, whose salary would be paid for with the waves of new cannabis licensing fees created by California’s recently passed medical marijuana law.
But much of the job would be the drudgery of administering — say setting up IT systems for the bureau and crafting the minutiae of regulation policy.
The pay: Up to $128,808 a year.
“To a certain extent it will be the same as any other bureau,” Heimerich said. “It will really be a lot more routine that most people imagine. Except that you’re dealing with marijuana.”
In this May 2013 file photo, medical marijuana prescription vials are filled at a medical marijuana dispensary in Venice, Calif. Photo: Damian Dovarganes, Associated Press Photo: Damian Dovarganes.
Whoever lands the job will need to foster relationships throughout the marijuana world.
“You’re going to have be trusted at local level, trusted at the state level, trusted by law enforcement and be able to help connect 17 different agencies who want to talk to each other,” said Sean Donahoe, a top marijuana industry consultant who knows Sacramento and has worked on non-weed political campaigns in California. “You’re going to have to get along with the industry, with the growers, and get along with the Legislature.
“Oh, and you’re going to have to deal with the federal government,” which still considers the product to be regulated to be illegal, Donahoe said. “You’re going to have be a benevolent technocrat who can still sit cross-legged and kumbaya with multiple agencies.”
It could be stressful enough to give even buttoned-up bureaucrats an excuse to sample the product they’re regulating. (Aside from law enforcement officers, Caltrans workers who regularly who drive state vehicles and a few others, most state employees aren’t drug tested as a condition of employment. And once hired, they may only get asked to do so if they’ve misbehaved in some way.)
Another pressure: If Californians vote to legalize marijuana for adult recreational use in November 2016, when the issue will likely be on the ballot, the Chief BuMMR could be either out of a job — or in line for an even bigger one regulating medical and recreational herb.
“I don’t know who’d want this, but it will definitely be a rollercoaster of a ride,” Donahoe said.
Kari Uyemoto (left) and Brandy Stewart (right) at the Apothecarium, a medical marijuana dispensary to shop for medical marijuana in San Francisco on Oct. 1, 2015. Photo: Liz Hafalia, The Chronicle
Looking to other states that have recently legalized cannabis for adult rec use offers a mixed bag. Colorado’s weed czar — aka “Director of Marijuana Coordination” is Andrew Freedman, a Harvard Law grad who did a summer stint in the U.S. Department of Justice. That alone might freak out the Humboldt County pot farmers who have spent decades ducking the feds.
Oregon’s czar — the “director of marijuana programs for the Oregon Liquor Control Commission” — got canned in March, three months into the job when the state accused him of leaking internal policy documents with a representative for cannabis growers, then lying about it.
The best nugget of advice for California’s future Chief BuMMR comes from Mark Kleiman, a New York University public policy professor and prolific cannabis author whose Los Angeles firm advised Washington’s Liquor Control Board on establishing its weed legalization policies.
Kleiman didn’t like being called the “pot czar.” He preferred the term “Hemperor.”
But when CNN host Erin Burnett gigglingly asked whether he used cannabis, Kleiman demurred, saying there’s no good way for a drug policy analyst to answer the question. The job, he said, requires you to offer the best policy solutions regardless of how you feel about weed — meaning it’s “irrelevant” whether you spark up.
“You have two options. You can say, ‘Yes, I’m a lawbreaker, come arrest me’ or ‘you can say, ‘No, I don’t know anything about the stuff I’m talking about,’” Kleiman told Burnett. “And since neither of those things are a really advantageous thing to say, I just make it a policy to not respond.”
By Joe Garofoli
http://www.sfchronicle.com/business...-weed-czar-C-A-seeks-a-technocrat-6659353.php
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